The Daily Rat Race

After what has seemed like an eternity I have finally left the world of students and ascended into the world of true adults. I have become a cog in the machine that is the national workforce and now drive the country forward in a way that benefits us all or at the very least me in the form of a pay packet. The greatest aspect of ascending into this world for me has to be the daily rat race me and millions of others endure in cramped humid smelly trains, trams and buses. It seems I’m one of the lucky ones as I drive to my local train station which avoids any cramped buses and my train journey is at most 15 minutes long. After never actually having been semi crushed by a sea of suits and pin striped skirts i wasn’t well prepared for my first crushing on the train. I got on and as polite as ever allowed two women to get on the train ahead of me. Oh how I regretted that decision. They took up the two remaining seats which meant i had to stand near the carriage doors. For most people this is not such a big thing but when you’re 6 foot 4 inches tall and the carriage is at most 6 foot 1 inches high it becomes a very uncomfortable journey indeed. Added to the fact that it had been raining and most of the people were very damp as well as the fact that it was very warm, the smell of crammed sweaty bodies squashed against each other made it a very smelly and sticky journey. Leaving that train made me think that this is what the people who managed to leave the black hole of Calcutta must have felt like.

My journeys haven’t all been doom and gloom I have learnt a lot of mannerisms and etiquettes which must be observed on the train. One of them being do not fall asleep if your journey is less than 20 minutes, the primary reason being that you will most probably miss your stop if you do and the fact that you may also get robbed whilst in your slumber. Another peculiar one is that you should never try to strike up a conversation with anyone on the train ever. I tried to talk to the woman stood next to me during one journey and the woman looked at me with a look of fear and horror with her eyes telling me “please take my bag just don’t hurt me”. Although I’ve not experienced it yet myself I’m guessing passing wind whilst very cramped would be a big no no for the obvious reason especially if you’ve been eating broccoli, sprouts or any other greens.

Reading seems to be a popular pastime whilst on a train and some people have mastered this to make it into an art form. Although this may not sound very impressive but when you’re pressed against a window or being thrown from side to side reading becomes a whole lot more difficult. I’ve noticed people swaying to the rhythm of the train whilst standing so they don’t fall over or get pushed to the side, this may sound easy but it’s very difficult to do, do it wrong and you end looking up like a mental ward escapee. Other than scaring a woman by attempting to talk to her my greatest achievement in my journeys so far has to be peeing whilst the train was moving. I still cannot believe I managed to get every single drop in the toilet. For those of you who may have used train toilets you know that this is no easy feat and requires excellent syncing with the swaying of the train as well as brilliant aim, I’m pretty sure only a small number have managed to do this and I’m proud to say that I’m one of them.

I guess I’ll have to wait and see what other wise wisdom and experiences my daily run in the rat race can offer me before i can truly say I’m an experienced commuter.

The Holocaust of our time

“Aid convoy attacked by commandos”

This was the main news title which glared at me this morning from my computer screen and my shock and horror grew as I read news story after news story on this very subject. It seemed that a “civilised democracy” had attacked an aid convoy which was on its way to help impoverished people. As the action was taken in international waters it is classed as piracy some 20 aid workers lost their lives (at the last count) and many more were injured. As well as this the ships were then forcibly taken and are now being forced to dock in a port controlled by this country. The UN is very clear about what acts should be taken when an act of piracy happens on the high seas.

Article 100 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea clearly states that “all states should cooperate in the fullest extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas”

To clarify what piracy is a definition is given in Article 101 “any illegal acts of violence or detention against a ship or aircraft or against property or persons on board such ship or aircraft”

Therefore under UN rules this act by these terrorists is clearly piracy as defined by the rule of law. Therefore we should be expecting an international taskforce like the one in the Gulf of Aden patrolling Somali waters getting ready to free the aid workers held by these terrorists. However I forgot to mention one thing that these terrorists were Israeli commandos ordered by their superiors to carry out this raid. Therefore this taskforce idea will have to wait for a very long time. It seems that Israel has been given an unlimited number of get out of jail free cards by its western donors which allow it to cause transgression after transgression. Most notable of which is the biggest concentration camp in the world known to us as Gaza.

Gaza has been under siege for the past three years the main reason for this siege being that the wrong party won the elections held in Palestine. But it seems that in the Gaza strip democratic elections are only fair if the party that Israel supports wins. The people chose Hamas and because of this the Israelis imposed a siege in order to slowly starve the people of Gaza into submission. The Israeli list of blocked items includes basic foodstuffs and medical supplies which the Israelis claim if allowed in would be used to strengthen Hamas. This to me and a large part of the world looks like collective punishment. This under Article 50 of The Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention is illegal. But the world will carry on without batting an eyelid. From time to time we get condemnations from foreign ministers of nations here and there but after the attack on the Freedom Flotilla it is now clear that words are not enough and action must be taken against the unruly and spoilt child that is Israel. It seems that our leaders think that because of the holocaust the world now owes Israel. It is because of this reason alone countries do not take action against Israel for fear of being labelled as anti-Semites.

The Israelis as victims of the dark spot on human history known as the holocaust should clearly understand the wrongs they are committing and the pain and fallout it causes but instead they have gone from the victims to becoming the victimisers and are in the process of carrying out a systematic genocide against the Palestinian people. The gas chambers may be gone but it seems that the weapon of choice for the new holocaust instigators is the wall surrounding the Gaza strip and the restriction of food and basic supplies. The means may have changed but the end is still very much the same. Gaza is the holocaust of our time.

The question is what are we going to do about it?

Freedom of Speech?

This week I came across something on the internet called Draw Muhammad Day. The purpose of this was to exhibit freedom of speech and to show Muslims that they cannot stop people insulting their religion or so I think. The reason why pictures of Muhammad are not allowed by Islam is so people do not start worshipping that likeness instead of god. Someone told me this is stupid but if you think about it is that not what has happened to Jesus. People bow down in front of the statue of Jesus on the cross in their churches in order to beg for forgiveness or to fulfil some want or whatever reason. In effect bypassing god and praying to Jesus. Now back to the point, this draw Muhammad day got me thinking when does freedom of speech become hate or does it never become these things. Just the words freedom of speech indicate that there is no limit to what can be said no matter how insulting or hateful and this is where the problem lies.

This drawing day was clearly a provocation to effect a reaction I don’t know what reaction the provocateurs were after, they probably don’t know themselves what reaction they were looking for. My guess is that this was just another one of them post 9/11 Muslim bashing ideas that went viral on the internet. If freedom of speech is insulting the faith and ideologies of another person then I’m perfectly happy with speech restrictions. Have our western ideals really decayed that much that in order to “educate” people regarding their religion we have to stoop to disrespecting and insulting it. Is this what the creators of freedom of speech really intended to happen. Think of this as a real life scenario if i were to call your mother a whore or a Jewish person a Zionist scumbag or Stephen hawking a freak on wheels is this still freedom of speech. After looking at some of the drawings it was very clear that the drawers were intent on causing the most insult possible, this to me showed that this was not freedom of speech but freedom to insult and humiliate. Freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of any free society but we have to be careful to ensure that freedom of speech does not become a vehicle of hate. The purpose of freedom of speech is to invoke argument for the purpose of understanding not insult for the purpose of hate. Ask yourselves this question; by drawing a picture of Muhammad what was my aim and was it related to freedom of speech in any way shape or form?

I’ve mentioned this to people before that since 9/11 Muslims have become the new Jews. This draw Muhammad day merely brought it into perspective as it demonstrated just how far the enmity towards the Muslims has got. It seems that people are telling the truth when they say that history often repeats itself. Draw Muhammad day can be likened to when Goebbels ordered the Third Reich propagandists to draw insulting pictures of Jews in order to alienate them. If history truly does repeat itself then remember this poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller.

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

The Curse of Immortality

I recently had a game of what would you wish for with a group of friends. I got the relatively common answers such as lots of money a new car etc etc. One of my friends said he would wish for immortality because he wanted to see what things would be like 100 years from now. Although this is a perfectly reasonable wish it got me thinking. What would immortality truly be like? As usual my mind went into overdrive and started thinking of the different possibilities in which immortality would present itself. The first was the common conception of immortal youth which would be ok but my second thought got me the most worried. What if you aged as normal but never died this means that your strength would gradually leave your body you may possibly lose your eyesight and your hearing like many old people do. You would end up effectively becoming a soul trapped in a fleshy coffin wishing for death. Sounds ironic doesn’t it.

However the idea of eternal youth seemed to have problems of its own. Imagine seeing all your friends and family dying before your eyes in effect seeing them age and waste away in front of your eyes. You would be expected to bear the misery of this pain each time you married, had children or made new friends. This anguish and pain taken time and time again would be enough for most people to wish for death or at the very least cause the immortal to become a hermit and live on his own away from people so he does have to endure the pain of seeing a loved one die. There is also a great chance that he would witness countless wars and atrocities which could in effect break his spirit and consequently his trust in humans. All these outcomes seemed very bleak so i thought to myself there must be some good to come out of this. Then i remembered a joke someone had texted me.

“A vicar asks is there anyone in this church who has no enemies the congregation look at each other when a very old woman stands up and says vicar i have no enemies. The vicar slightly bemused asks her are you sure? Course I’m sure replies the woman I’ve outlived all the bitches”

It’s slightly sad if you think about it, that this was one of the good points of immortality but even if all your current enemies die there’s a high probability that you would pick up a few new ones along the way. Another good thing to witness probably would be the advancement of the human race whether it is technological or social. This would seem pretty awesome for the average sci-fi geek but if you thought about it in a rational way there’s a chance that you wouldn’t really think of the changes as great achievements when they actually happened. Let me illustrate this point by using a life example. Imagine that someone puts on 2 stones in weight over the course of 6 months if you saw this person every day you probably wouldn’t notice it but if you hadn’t seen this person since before they put weight on you would automatically notice the extra weight they were carrying. Similarly technological advancements don’t seem all that great when they’ve been phased into your life bit by bit. So all in all immortality doesn’t seem to be as good as it’s portrayed to be in the media. So always remember be careful what you wish for because the gift may turn into a curse.

BAN THE BURKHA

It seems that every time i pick up a newspaper this little issue seems to wriggle itself into the newspaper. The biggest argument is that it is anti social and these women that wear it are hard to communicate with and the only reason they wear it is because [insert male relative here] is forcing them to. If these women are so head to communicate with how do these journalists find out why they wear the burkha? Ok so i understand that there is a possibility that some women may be forced into wearing one but you always have to remember that the people who wear a burkha are a minority within a minority and the women forced to wear one are a minority within a minority within a minority. I hear a lot of people using feminism as a point of argument against the burkha saying that it turns women into second class citizens etc. But wouldn’t it be more demeaning for a woman to be told what she can and cannot wear. As someone so eloquently put it in response to ukip's proposed ban on the burkha in order to liberate a woman you will tell her how she can and cannot dress and in order to free her you will jail her for having the freedom to choose what she wants to wear. I hear this argument about burkhas being intimidating etc for me this seems like a very childish argument however i do believe that they may be some people who are easily intimidated by small things but the vast majority of people who use this argument make no effort to learn more about this issue and all they know about the burkha comes from reading the daily tabloids who can't exactly be called today's fountain of unbiased information. The funniest thing for me is the fact that pre 9/11 no one seemed to care about the burkha or any other Muslim issue the burkha was not seen as Muslim patriarchal oppression but rather as a woman's devotion to god much like how a nun's habit is seen. So before we start getting all angry and lynching burkha clad women in the street we have to ask ourselves is this what western freedom means? dress like us or else. If so then what is the difference between us and the Taliban or any other religious fundamentalist around the world. Our freedoms come from the fact that we are willing to understand the needs and actions of each other and through our actions of understanding can we truly bring about the peaceful harmonious world that so many people have dreamed of. No matter how different something may seem from the norm you have to remember that it’s not always done to go against the tide of society but sometimes it might just be done for a higher purpose

Ps. could people stop saying they can wear one when i can wear a mini skirt in Saudi Arabia. Europe is a continent of free democracies. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by a single ruling family the citizens have no say in who makes their laws whereas we do. Comparisons should be made between two similar systems not two systems fundamentally different.

The Lost Symbol? more like lost hope

I recently finished reading the lost symbol by Dan brown. I felt like i was reading the Da Vinci code all over again not because it was a real page turner but because it was exactly the same story the only difference Prof Langdon had new companions and they were talking about a different cult this time. After seeing reviews i had pretty high hopes for this book but it seems he peaked when the Da Vinci code was made into a movie. The more i read it the more i felt that i was reading a Hollywood movie script rather than some mystery thriller. in the whole book i found one single twist and even then it didn't feel like some almighty revelation it was more like a mini "oh" moment. as well as reading this i also read angels and demons which i seem to have the same problem with it seems like your reading a high school homework which the class has copied from each other but changed slightly to avoid being caught out. this is what his books are starting to feel like each one has the same undertones about some forgotten brotherhood/sisterhood/Jesus fan club etc and poor prof Langdon has to crack some series of codes with a female sidekick in order to save a friend this sentence is a brief but very accurate overview of three of Dan Browns books. But to come back to the lost symbol the hype definitely was not met by the book. I know some people may like it but all in all i felt it was a rather poor money making exercise from the guy who gave us the Da Vinci code.